Itunes won't move

[jimmyj68]

Hope this is the right place for this -----I want to load and use iTunes from my secondary drive as my primary drive is an SSD and my iTunes library is quite large - however - iTunes refuses to load on a secondary drive no matter what i do - and my music backup DVD's always default to C Drive where ITunes goes even when I move its files to the secondary drive - message comes up --wait while windows configures iTunes -- short for wer're moving everything back to C drive. Is iTunes impossible to run on any other drive than the primary boot drive?

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Uninstall, and reinstall iTunes onto the secondary drive, and when it asks for your library say you want to organize your library yourself.

 

[TheStu]

Although iTunes.exe probably wants to stay on C:, you can move your iTunes library to a different drive and then just point iTunes to it. Hit CTRL+, to bring up the preferences, and then go to Advanced.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Well, I have my iTunes running on my D drive, with my music library. You just have to point it at that drive during installation.

 

[jimmyj68]

Thanks all, that is kinda what I figured, but I'm kinda clumsy at doing it. I'll wipe iTunes away and try to point it at my secondary drive. Thanks again, I don't want 15 gig of iTunes on my SSD.

 

[jimmyj68]

I delelted/cleaned every trace of iTunes from my machine. I placed the iTunes 64bit install program on my E drive - ran the installer and had itunes open at install completion. Closed iTunes checked my C drive and lo-and-behold ---there was iTunes in the programs folder. Not to be undone i deleted it from the programs folder on C, checked that it was still on E. I then clicked on the iTunes icon on the desktop. Up comes the message "wait while windows configures iTunes - and- you guessed it - iTunes was back on C.

Now I'm ready to forget iTunes. I have a lot of music on Rhapsody, and I can listen to whatever i want at anytime. It costs $10.00 a month but the program for rhapsody resides happily on my E drive. I'm going to try it one more time - if i can't get iTunes to leave my C drive this time that's it. I can't put my library on E because i did all of my backups with itunes and the DVD's default to itunes. I could (but i won't) copy every item from 7 DVD's individually to a folder and have itunes point to that folder on E drive as someone here suggested.

Maybe I just don't know what I'm doing. Can someone walk me through this process of putting iTunes where i want it.

 

[TheStu]

I delelted/cleaned every trace of iTunes from my machine. I placed the iTunes 64bit install program on my E drive - ran the installer and had itunes open at install completion. Closed iTunes checked my C drive and lo-and-behold ---there was iTunes in the programs folder. Not to be undone i deleted it from the programs folder on C, checked that it was still on E. I then clicked on the iTunes icon on the desktop. Up comes the message "wait while windows configures iTunes - and- you guessed it - iTunes was back on C.

Now I'm ready to forget iTunes. I have a lot of music on Rhapsody, and I can listen to whatever i want at anytime. It costs $10.00 a month but the program for rhapsody resides happily on my E drive. I'm going to try it one more time - if i can't get iTunes to leave my C drive this time that's it. I can't put my library on E because i did all of my backups with itunes and the DVD's default to itunes. I could (but i won't) copy every item from 7 DVD's individually to a folder and have itunes point to that folder on E drive as someone here suggested.

Maybe I just don't know what I'm doing. Can someone walk me through this process of putting iTunes where i want it.

Is your music on your computer?
If it is on the computer, where is it?

Let us, for the sake of argument, say that you answered yes, and C: \My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music. So, here is what I would like you to do. Open iTunes, hit CTRL+, and go to the Advanced tab. On there you should see a field labelled 'iTunes Media folder location'. Click Change. Now, open up Explorer and on drive E: create a folder called Music.

Back to iTunes. You hit Change, you now have a box up that let's you choose locations on your hard drive. Navigate to E: \Music. Select that. Now... here comes the fun part, iTunes should (in theory) do all the work for you. You changed the location, make sure that under that 'iTunes Media folder location' box the checkboxes: 'Keep iTunes Media folder organized' and 'Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library' are both checked.

So, this is done, you have changed the location, you have the boxes checked. Close the preferences, and hit File->Library->Organize Library->Consolidate (and if you want, Organize as well).

There, that is it. iTunes will now proceed to move all your music, and in the process alter it's iTunes library file (that might still reside on C: ) to reflect the new drive locations.

Your backup DVDs shouldn't have any bearing on this.

 

[jimmyj68]

Thanks Stu. I'll walk this through.

I still need my backup DVD's because in my cleanup efforts I also removed all music files. I'll redo everything and after all music (and movie and TV shows) are restored I'll walk through your instructions. Thanks again, I'll let you know how it turns out.

 

[TheStu]

Thanks Stu. I'll walk this through.

I still need my backup DVD's because in my cleanup efforts I also removed all music files. I'll redo everything and after all music (and movie and TV shows) are restored I'll walk through your instructions. Thanks again, I'll let you know how it turns out.

Do the DVDs have to go back to where they came from? You don't get to select the destination? If you can, then you can restore them to E:, and then after point iTunes.exe to it, you should be able to exit and relaunch and it will populate.

The actual program is small, letting it sitting in C:\Program Files shouldn't be a problem.

 

[jimmyj68]

You can't hear it but Andre Previn is doing his piano thing, and my C SSD isn't loaded to the gills with music etc. Files.

I Didn't restore the entire 7 DVD set of backups it was too humongous. It was backed up in 2008 anyway so a lot was missing anyway that is on a smaller HD that I may try to restore at some later date - maybe -

Thanks again, you are a life saver (and an iTunes saver)